House GOP thinks unthinkable on DOD cuts

The Republican mantra for decades has been: cut NPR, EPA and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Now add the Pentagon to the list.

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In the modern history of the Republican Party, it would have been unthinkable. The GOP is built on two core tenets — small government and big defense spending — and for decades, the two ideas co-existed peacefully. Republicans wanted to cut the federal budget — everywhere except the Pentagon. No more.

The reason: A new breed of conservatives in the House cares so much about cutting spending they’re willing to extend that to the budget for bullets and bombs, too — in this case, by letting $500 billion in across-the-board automatic budget cuts over 10 years take effect, alongside a similar number for domestic agencies.

“I’m reading what a lot of different members are saying, and I find there’s not as much opposition to sequestration as I thought there might be,” Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.), the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee in charge of the Pentagon’s purse strings, told POLITICO.

“I don’t think I have any real feeling for which direction this House is going, and this is the first time in a long time that I haven’t had a pretty good feel for it,” Young added.

It’s got defense hawks in the House on edge — and on the defensive. But the members of the next generation say their argument is straightforward: Of course they want a strong national defense, but spending is spending.

“What you’re hearing from some folks about the status of the sequester simply tells you that there’s a group of Republicans who are willing to look at the Defense Department equally with the other departments,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), a sophomore who has been leading the campaign for spending cuts, including at the Pentagon.

“I think Republicans lose credibility when they say we have to look everywhere for savings except defense,” he added.

Republican Policy Committee Chairman James Lankford of Oklahoma said sequester isn’t his first choice. He’d rather shift cuts to domestic programs, but he knows that’s an idea Senate Democrats aren’t going to swallow.

“I haven’t done the head count, but I can tell you a large part is committed to saying we have to reduce spending. We’d rather do it another way. But if the only way it can be done is sequestration, then it has to be done,” said Lankford, a sophomore who quickly rose to the top ranks of Republican leadership.

Right now, bets are on the automatic cuts taking place. It would take a dramatic, last-minute action from the White House to prevent them.

And sequestration saber rattling is loud enough that the defense industry is taking notice. Pentagon brass, who had long insisted they weren’t planning for sequestration, outlined several short-term personnel measures in case Congress doesn’t turn off the automatic cuts by the March 1 deadline, including hiring freezes, voluntary early retirements and furloughs of up to 30 days.